The Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1 is initially marked lento and is in 4/4 meter. The piece becomes poco più lento at measure 25 and enters its middle section, which is a chorale. Later, it moves to doppio movimento agitato at measure 49. The piece is a total of 77 measures long. In general, the scheme of the music is ternary form and follows A-B-A’.

The Nocturne in C minor has been categorized as one of Chopin’s greatest emotional achievements. Theodor Kullak said of the piece, “the design and poetic contents of this nocturne make it the most important one that Chopin created; the chief subject is a masterly expression of a great powerful grief.”Jan Kleczyński, Sr. calls the nocturne “broad and most imposing with its powerful intermediate movement, a thorough departure from the nocturne style." Some musical critics, including Charles Willeby and Frederick Niecks, do not think the piece deserves its fame and position; though James Huneker agrees with this assessment, he notes that the nocturne is still "the noblest nocturne of them all." James Friskin found the music to have "the most imposing instrumental effect of any of the nocturnes,” calling the crescendo and octaves “almost Lisztian.”

Jim Samson notes that the nocturne intensifies “not through ornamentation, but through a new textural background." Kleczyński commented that the middle section "is the tale of a still greater grief told in an agitated recitando; celestial harps come to bring one ray of hope, which is powerless in its endeavor to calm the wounded soul, which…sends forth to heaven a cry of deepest anguish."The ending, according to Samson, is "in the nature of an elaborated ’feminine ending’, articulating the reactive final beat of an amphibrach grouping.”

One of Chopin’s most beautiful pieces. People like to call this one of Chopin’s mini ballades… This ever evolving piece evokes the strongest of emotions in me.﻿

Performer:Arthur Rubinstein. There is no better version of this piece by anyone else.
He didn’t want to show his technic but his sensibility.Definitely he was an awesome pianist !﻿

Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38, was composed from 1836 to 1839 in Nohant, France, and on the Spanish island of Majorca. Robert Schumann, who had dedicated his Kreisleriana, Op. 16, to Chopin, received the dedication of this Ballade in return. The piece has been criticized by prominent pianists and musicologists, including its dedicatee Schumann, as a less ingenious work than the first. There is some degree of disagreement as to its inspiration, with the claim often made that it was inspired by Adam Mickiewicz’s poem Świtezianka, the lake of Willis, but this claim is unsubstantiated, and the Ballade No. 3 is sometimes attributed to this poem as well.

Opening bars of Ballade No.2

As with the Ballades No. 3 and No. 4, the Ballade No. 2 is written in compound duple (6/8) time. It opens quietly on the dominant of the F major key, with repeated Cs in both the left and right hands. This quickly progresses to a melody and development with the performance instruction sotto voce – literally “under the voice”, or “quietly”. This section fades out with several repeated As in the right hand. The next section of the ballade, in stark contrast to the first, opens with the performance instruction Presto con fuoco – literally “very fast with fire”. It is in an unusual key for a secondary melody; instead of being in the parallel minor of F minor, it is instead in A minor. Chopin scholar and biographer Frederick Niecks writes of it, “The entrance of the presto … seems out of keeping with what precedes; but what we hear after… justifies the presence of the presto.” The piece shortly returns to its original tempo and style, and the first melody is further elaborated. Here, Chopin incorporates variations on the melody not present in the initial expository stage of the piece. This development progresses until the Presto con fuoco theme is naturally reintroduced and recapitulated. This time, it is elaborated on as well, and ends abruptly, until the theme is echoed once more and the piece fades out. The original F major theme is echoed, but now in A minor, the key of the Presto; it is thus that the piece ends, without returning to its tonic key.

Pianist:Kyrstian Zimerman

Words can not even describe Zimerman and his interpretations. Never a bad interpretation if this man is playing.﻿